Dead Memories

Book 10: D.I. Kim Stone

by Angela Marsons

Genres: Mystery; Hard-Boiled; Police Procedurals; Female Sleuths; Thrillers; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

She ruined their lives. Now they’re going to destroy hers. ‘Someone is recreating every traumatic point in your life. They are doing this to make you suffer, to make you hurt and the only possible end game can be death. Your death.’ On the fourth floor of Chaucer House, two teenagers are found chained to a radiator. The boy is dead but the girl is alive. For Detective Kim Stone every detail of the scene mirrors her own terrifying experience with her brother Mikey, when they lived in the same tower block thirty years ago. When the bodies of a middle-aged couple are discovered in a burnt-out car, Kim can’t ignore the chilling similarity to the death of Erica and Keith – the only loving parents Kim had ever known. Faced with a killer who is recreating traumatic events from her past, Kim must face the brutal truth that someone wants to hurt her in the worst way possible. Desperate to stay on the case, she is forced to work with profiler Alison Lowe who has been called in to observe and monitor Kim’s behaviour. Kim has spent years catching dangerous criminals and protecting the innocent. But with a killer firmly fixed on destroying Kim, can she solve this complex case and save her own life or will she become the final victim? The heart-stopping and totally addictive new crime thriller from multi-million copy number one bestseller Angela Marsons will have you completely hooked. Read what everyone is saying about Dead Memories: ‘The book I've been waiting for without even knowing that I was… A great starting point for anyone new to the series… I couldn't put the book down…It is completely addictive and easily my new favourite in this series, I have a feeling I've said that before, but what can I say Angela Marsons seems to outdo herself each and every time.’ Rachel’s Random Reads, 5 stars ‘As always, another brilliant book by Angela Marsons featuring Detective Kim Stone and her team… Fast-paced and dark it kept me gripped from the first page to the last. Utterly superb.’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ‘The author writes to such a consistently high level. Yet again, gripping plot line, strong characters and a well-paced story that builds to a crescendo. If you haven't already tried this author do yourself a favour and start reading now.’ Worcester Source, 5 stars ‘Wow! Just wow. I knew I would be engrossed in this book so cleared my schedule today to read it cover to cover. I’m so glad I did!...’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ‘Once again, she delivers a fast-paced, action-packed nail-biting roller coaster ride of a book… This is one series that just gets better with each book.’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ‘ Reading this instalment of Kim's life is like catching up with an old friend… Each book gives you some insight into her past… Angela gives to us yet another riveting, gritty, chilling insight into Kim's world… One scene in the book moved me to tears.’ booksbehindthetitle, 5 stars ‘I loved getting further into Kim’s psyche and learning more about her which only makes you like the character more. Bring on book eleven!’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars I blooming love this series. I love Kim, her vulnerability and tenacity, I love the interaction and banter between the characters…., another cracking addition to an already brilliant and well established series.’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ‘The uber-sharp Kim Stone has to be one of the best detectives out there. A twisty, fast-paced plot stocked with red herrings.’ Bookpreneur, 5 stars ‘Angela Marsons is fast becoming one of the best crime fiction authors going. The Laughing Librarian, 5 stars

Release date: February 22, 2019

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 400

Sample

Amy Wilde’s eyes closed as the liquid gold entered her vein and travelled around her body. She could visualise the trail of white hot beauty hurtling towards her brain.

The effects were almost immediate. The pleasure suffused every inch of her being, almost painful in its intensity. The euphoria transported her to another planet, another world, somewhere undiscovered. Nothing in her life had ever felt so good. Elation pumped through her body. Wave after wave of ecstasy surged through her skin, muscles, tendons – right through to the centre of her bones. She tried to hang on to it as it weakened in strength.

Don’t go. I love you. I need you. Don’t go, her mind screamed, pleaded, begged, desperate to hang on to the sensation for as long as she could.

As the last tremors of happiness faded away she turned her head to her left to share that secret smile with Mark, her lover, her friend, her soulmate as she always did after a shared hit of heroin.

But Mark didn’t look okay, she realised, through the fatigue that was pulling her into the welcoming dark oblivion that always followed the hit.

She knew they were sitting on the floor in an unfamiliar room. She knew the radiator was warming her through the denim jacket. She knew there were handcuffs around her wrist but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered after a hit like that.

She tried to say Mark’s name but the word wouldn’t crawl out of her mouth.

Something was wrong with Mark.

His eyes were not closed, already succumbed to the warm drowsiness. They were wide: staring, unblinking, at a spot on the ceiling.

Amy wanted to reach across and touch him, shake him awake. She wanted to share that smile before she gave in to the dark.

But she couldn’t move a muscle.

This wasn’t normal. The usual heaviness that soaked into her bones made her feel lethargic and weighted down but she could always muster enough energy to turn and snuggle Mark.

The exhaustion was trying to take her, pulling at her eyelids, willing her to sleep, but she had to try and touch Mark.

Through the descending fog she tried with all her might to move a single finger, but there was no response. The message was not making it out of her brain.

She tried to fight the creeping drowsiness, but it was like a blanket being pulled up over her head.

She felt helpless, weak, unable to shoo away the blackness, but she knew that Mark needed her.

It was no use. She couldn’t outrun the shadows that chased her.

Her eyes began to droop as she heard the door to the flat slam shut.

Kim felt her jaws clench at the incessant tapping sound niggling her left ear.

A moth had entered her garage space through the open shutter that was capturing little breeze from the storm-heavy June air. The insect was launching itself repeatedly against the 60 watt bulb.

But that wasn’t the tapping that was annoying her.

‘If you’re bored, piss off,’ she said, as a few flecks of rust dislodged from the wheel spokes and landed on her jeans.

‘I’m not bored, I’m thinking,’ Gemma said, tipping her head and looking up at the moth, who was giving himself an aneurism.

‘Convince me,’ Kim said, drily.

‘I’m trying to decide whether to take the flowers with me or arrange them in a vase at home.’

‘Hmm…’ Kim offered, helpfully, as she continued to scrape.

She knew that Bryant and many other people questioned her relationship with the teenager who had been sent to kill her, manipulated and used by Kim’s nemesis, Doctor Alexandra Thorne.

Bryant’s view was that the girl should be locked up at Drake Hall prison, where her mother was currently residing and where the girl had come into contact with the sociopathic psychiatrist who had made it her life’s work to torment Kim at every opportunity since she had put an end to her sick experiments on her vulnerable patients.

As far as Bryant was concerned there were no circumstances under which you could befriend a person who had wanted you dead. It was simple. Except it wasn’t. Because Kim understood two things perfectly: how skilled Alexandra Thorne was in manipulating every weakness or vulnerability a person had – the ones they knew about and even the ones they didn’t. And that the girl had suffered a shit childhood through no fault of her own.

She wasn’t being facetious in not responding to the girl’s comment. It just wasn’t something she could see happening.

Gemma’s mother had been in and out of prison all the kid’s life, palming her child off onto any relative who’d have her, until no one would take the child. Gemma had resorted to selling her body in order to eat. Yet, for some reason, the kid had maintained regular contact with her mother and visited at every opportunity.

The woman was due for release the following week but somehow she always managed to get herself into some further trouble that extended her sentence.

Kim had offered Gemma a loose invitation that whenever she was in need of a meal to come round, instead of heading for the streets, and while she couldn’t offer a gourmet meal she could throw in some oven chips or a pizza.

And Gemma had taken her up on the offer, even after she’d secured a job a month ago working part-time at Dudley Library.

‘So, how’s work?’ Kim asked, avoiding the subject of her mother completely.

Gemma blew a raspberry, and Kim laughed.

There were days Gemma was an old eighteen-year-old hardened by choices and what life had thrown at her already and other times she was just eighteen.

And Kim hadn’t minded the unexpected company today. Of all days.

‘Look, Gem, it might not be brain—’

‘Numbing,’ she cut in. ‘It’s brain numbing,’ she said, pulling a face.

‘I check books out; I check books back in. I put ’em back on the shelves. In the evening before we close I get the coveted job of wiping over the keyboards of the communal computers.’

Kim hid her smile. It was much more entertaining hearing Gemma complain about her job than moaning she couldn’t get one.

‘Oh, and yesterday I had this lovely old dear approach me,’ she said, standing. She hunched her back and pretended to walk with a cane across the space. ‘“Excuse me, love, but could you show me how to send these photos to my son in New Zealand?” she asked thrusting her ancient digital camera at me. I swear…’

‘Hang on,’ Kim said, as her phone began to ring.

‘Stone,’ she answered, brushing rust off her jeans.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Marm, but something happening over at Hollytree. A bit garbled. Got an address and one word,’ said a voice from dispatch.

‘Give me the address,’ she said, getting to her feet.

‘Chaucer block, flat 4B,’ he said.

Her stomach turned. Same block, three floors lower. Today, of all fucking days.

‘Okay, I’m on my way. Get Bryant en route too.’

‘Will do, Marm.’

‘And the word?’ she asked. ‘What was it?’

‘It was “dead”, Marm. The word was “dead”.’

Kim negotiated the maze of streets, dead ends and shortcuts with ease on the Ninja, drawing curious glances from the groups of people congregating on the pavements wearing as little clothing as possible in an effort to catch the night-time breeze.

The sun had set fifteen minutes earlier leaving a red marble sky and a temperature still in the high teens. It was going to be another long, sticky night.

She wound the bike around the bin stores and headed for Chaucer House, the middle block of flats at the bulging belly of the sprawling Hollytree housing estate.

Chaucer was known for being the roughest of the tower blocks, home to the worst that society had to offer.

It had also been home for the first six years of her life. Normally, she was able to keep that thought pinned to the noticeboard at the back of her mind. But not today. Right now, it was front and centre.

She eased the bike through two police cars, an ambulance and a first responder bike and parked behind Bryant’s Astra Estate. He lived a couple of miles closer and it had taken her a few minutes to shepherd Gemma out of her house. The girl had been wide-eyed with curious questions about what she’d been called to.

Not that Kim would have told her but she hadn’t known herself.

‘Oi, pig on a bike,’ shouted a voice from the crowd as she removed her helmet.

She ran a hand through her short black hair, freeing it from her scalp, while shaking her head. Yeah, she hadn’t heard that insult for at least, oh, three days or so.

The crowd around the voice laughed, which Kim ignored as she headed for the entrance to the tower block.

She’d passed an outer cordon, an inner cordon and then met a wall of constables at the lifts and staircase.

The lift on the right had dropped below floor level and its doors gaped open, obviously out of order.

‘Evening, Marm,’ said a WPC stepping forward. ‘One working lift,’ she said, pointing to the display which told her it was currently on floor five. ‘We’re clearing the floor above and the floor below, Marm.’

Kim nodded her understanding. The stairs were being kept free for police use, while the lift was being kept as a means of access for the residents.

Evacuating the whole building for an incident on one floor was not an option, so the situation had to be managed.

She headed for the stairs and began the ascent to the fourth floor.

Thank goodness her left leg was now in a stronger state to deal with it, following the fracture she’d sustained after falling from the roof of a two-storey building in a previous case three months ago.

Officers were stationed at each floor to ensure no one tried to get closer to the incident. One of the officers at the fourth floor smiled and held open the door into the lobby.

She approached the open doorway.

Inspector Plant blocked her way.

‘What the?…’

‘If you can just hang on?’ he said, looking behind him.

She gave him a hard stare. She knew this guy well, had worked with him a few times. What the hell was he playing at?

‘Plant, if you don’t move yourself from that—’

‘Your colleague, Bryant,’ he said, uncomfortably. ‘He doesn’t want you in there.’

‘What the fuck are you on?’ she raged. It was a crime scene, she was the SIO and she wanted access.

‘I don’t give a shit what…’

Her words trailed away as Bryant came into view behind the inspector, who moved out of the way.

His face was ashen and drawn, his eyes full of horror. He hadn’t looked as bad as this when he’d been lying on the floor with her hand in his stomach to stop the blood that was oozing out of him on their last major case. If he wasn’t known to the constables as a detective sergeant someone would be wrapping him in a foil blanket.

‘Bryant, what the?…’

‘Don’t go in there, guv,’ he said, quietly.

Kim tried to understand what was going on here.

Together they had witnessed the worst that mankind could do to each other. They’d viewed bodies where the stench of blood clung to the air. They’d seen corpses in the worst state of decay, alive with maggots and flies. Together they had unearthed the bodies of innocent teenage girls. He knew her stomach could handle just about anything, so why was he trying to stand in her way now?

He ushered her to the side. ‘Kim, I’m asking as a friend. Don’t go in there.’

Never before had he used her first name on the job. Not once.

What the hell had he just seen?

She took a deep breath and fixed him with a stare.

‘Bryant, get out of my way. Now.’

Kim weaved her way through the personnel that were providing a guiding tunnel towards the crime scene. No one gave her a second glance. She was expected so what the hell was Bryant’s problem? she wondered, feeling his presence behind.

Bloody drama queen.

A wall of uniforms parted, and she froze.

For just a few seconds every sound around her was muted, every movement not seen, as her eyes registered the scene before her.

The saliva dried in her mouth as she wondered if she was going to pass out. She felt Bryant’s hand on her elbow, steadying her.

She turned to look at him. His expression was fearful, concerned. And she got it. She knew why he’d tried to protect her.

She swallowed down the nausea and turned back, trying to shake off the slow-motion feel to her actions.

An emaciated black-haired male in his late teens sat with his back against the radiator. His dead, glossy eyes stared straight ahead, his head lolled to the left. His bony legs were lost inside the jeans that covered them. Milky white arms, little wider than a snooker cue, hung out of the short-sleeved tee shirt.

Undeniably dead, his body began to move, to shudder rhythmically. Kim followed the line of his right arm, slightly extended from his body, to his wrist and the handcuff that was still attached to the radiator and the wrist of the girl on whom the paramedics were still working, causing the awkward, jerky movements that rippled across.

Events around her began to filter back in as though someone was gradually removing headphones from her ears.

‘I think we gotta move her, Geoff,’ said one of the paramedics. ‘We got her back twice, next time…’

His words trailed away, no need for a full explanation.

She moved aside as they lifted her effortlessly onto the stretcher. The preservation of life over the preservation of evidence.

No one got to investigate anything while paramedics were working.

There were no grunts of effort as they lay her down.

The girl was even thinner than the dead boy beside her. Her bones appeared to be barely covered by the thin layer of skin that hung loosely in places. Her young face was gaunt, cheekbones and chin sharp against her skin. Dark rings circled her eyes and sores littered her skin.

A low moan sounded from her mouth as they headed towards the door.

The second paramedic kicked something as he passed by. It landed at her feet.

She heard Bryant’s sharp intake of breath as he looked down at the empty Coca Cola bottle.

Kim tried to maintain her composure as she looked around. She expected all eyes to be on her. Waiting for some kind of reaction. A reaction that every cell of her being wanted to scream.

No one was looking her way. Of course, they weren’t. They didn’t know.

A boy and a girl chained to a radiator. A Coke bottle. This same flat a few floors up.

The sweltering heat outside. The boy dead, the girl alive.

They didn’t know this was a recreation of the most traumatic event of her life.

Bryant did and yet there was something even he wasn’t aware of.

Today marked the thirty-year anniversary.

It was almost eleven when Kim parked the Ninja outside Halesowen Police Station.

And whether or not the weariness that had taken over her body had wanted to propel her straight home, she hadn’t been surprised to see the message from Woody on her phone instructing her to return to the station upon leaving the scene, whatever the time.

And she had been only too pleased to get away from Bryant who had asked her a hundred times if she was okay while his eyes had searched hers to see how she was feeling.

She had convinced him that she was fine and now it was time to convince Woody.

‘Sir,’ she said, putting her head around the door. She entered and left the door open. Subtle, she thought.

‘Close it,’ he said.

Not subtle enough.

She stood behind the chair opposite his desk.

Still here at this time of night and his only concession to the hour was a loosening of the tie and a few crumples in his brilliant white shirt.

‘Saw the report, so tell me more about the crime scene.’

‘Not sure there is a crime yet,’ she answered. ‘Two teenagers, drugs, one overdosed and one pretty close. I’ll attend the post-mortem of the male tomorrow but I think it’ll turn up as accidental overdose.’

‘That’s it?’ he asked, his face hardening.

She opened her arms expressively, unsure what he wanted to hear. ‘Err… Bryant got there before—’

‘And appeared to remain alone judging by the level of detail you’ve just given me.’

‘I’m not sure what?…’

His gaze intensified in line with his irritation. ‘Were the needles used for the hit present? Was the tourniquet on the male’s arm and were you even there?’

Kim thought for a moment, before speaking.

‘I arrived at the scene and entered the larger of the two bedrooms, which was approximately ten feet by ten. On my right were two police constables and a female sergeant. One of the officers was blonde and two were brunette; one had an eagle tattoo on his left forearm; and the blonde guy had a beard.’

‘Stone, I think…’

‘On my left was a third constable standing over two paramedics who were on the ground trying to keep the female alive, who had died twice, incidentally, before I got there. One of the paramedics was wearing—’

‘Stone, shut up,’ he snapped.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

‘What about the handcuffs, chained to the radiator?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she answered, pushing the vision from her mind.

‘You didn’t think to mention this to…’

‘Coincidence,’ she finished for him, totally convinced that’s what it was.

‘You don’t believe in coincidence,’ he responded, shrewdly.

‘In all honesty, I’m thinking it’s some kind of sex game gone wrong. Perhaps some type of I’ll inject you and you inject me thing that got out of hand. I’m sure the drug paraphernalia is there somewhere and Forensics will have it bagged and analysed.’

‘So, you don’t draw any comparisons at all?’ he asked.

‘To what?’ she replied, being deliberately vague as though the thought had never occurred to her.

If she was honest, the second she’d walked into that room a few floors below her own home for six years, she had immediately been transported back thirty years and saw her dead brother lying against the radiator, but as her working brain had kicked in she’d realised that it was purely coincidental and had no link to her own childhood. Sad as it was, these kids were drug addicts and had died by the sword.

The loss of the young man’s life, although tragic, had no link to her or Mikey.

She should have guessed that Woody would remember the salient facts from her personnel file and, although they’d never spoken about it, she was well aware that he knew things she had shared with very few people. Even Bryant only knew the barest of bones.

‘So, Stone, I repeat my question: you’re convinced there is absolutely no tie to you at all?’

She didn’t hesitate. ‘Completely, sir,’ she said, and meant it.

Almost.

By 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning Kim had drunk a pot of coffee back home, walked and fed Barney, her unsociable, spirited Border Collie, got into work and prepared herself for Bryant’s early entrance.

‘Morning, guv. You—’

‘I’m fine and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be. Got it?’

‘So, how’d you sleep?’ he said, asking her the exact same question but with different words.

‘I slept fine,’ she answered, pouring her fourth coffee of the day.

And that was a blatant lie.

After her late-night walk with Barney she had crawled into bed and instantly felt wide awake. She’d stared into the darkness, playing back the scene in her mind, and pushing away the memories that were trying to force open the lid of the box within which they were stored.

She’d employed all her old habits to trick her mind into shutting out the intrusive thoughts. She picked one of her favourite biking routes: up through Stourton to the Bridgnorth Road, past Six Ashes and through villages like Enville and Morville.

She tried to imagine herself handling the Ninja, dipping and leaning into the bends, opening up the engine, working hard to control the bike on the route she knew all too well. Normally she’d feel her mind react to the need for concentration, her body tensing and adjusting until she fell asleep, her mind distracted for just long enough to escape the thoughts.

But not last night. In her mind, she’d crashed the bike four times as her brain had refused to join in the exercise that was her version of counting sheep.

All she could picture was that young man’s body slumped lifelessly against the radiator and lying in the dark silence of her bedroom had not helped rid her of that vision.

And so she’d risen, made coffee, and worked on the bike for a couple of hours before commencing her morning routine, which had been dangerously close to her night-time routine.

‘Ooh, is that a caffeine twitch or are you just pleased to see me?’ he joked.

‘Yeah, splitting my sides at that.’

He glanced sideways at her. ‘You trying to be funny?’ he asked, glancing down at his own left-hand side which had been split with a five-inch blade a month earlier.

‘Jeez, Bryant, I didn’t mean—’

‘Morning,’ Penn said, saving her from continuing.

He placed the Tupperware box on the spare desk before removing his man-bag and throwing it beneath his desk.

‘Sorry I’m late, boss,’ Stacey said, rushing in and throwing herself into the seat that had once belonged to Kevin Dawson.

Kim knew they all missed him every day, sometimes still expected him to breeze in with some kind of smart-arse comment. But not as often as the early days. Their acceptance was coming with time.

‘Okey dokey, folks,’ Kim said. ‘Update on cases from yesterday?’

‘Didn’t you get called out last night, boss?’ Stacey asked, frowning.

Normally a call-out late at night was a precursor to their next big case meaning other cases had to be resolved quickly, where possible, or handed over to another team.

Normally one of them would be at the board, writing the name of the victim, underlining it, stating the priority of uncovering the reason for the person’s demise.

Normally, there would be an air of anticipation, a crackle, invisible but electric, an energy that only came at the beginning. Bryant would compare it to the beginning of a four-course meal at his favourite restaurant. She would liken it to starting a new build of a classic motorcycle in her garage, bits and pieces strewn all over the concrete floor. Each with their own purpose waiting to be put together, attached to the next component which eventually formed the whole.

Except this case had no mysteries to unravel and, as tragic as the scene had been, it had not been murder and it had no link to her.

‘Double overdose, Stace,’ Kim explained. ‘Just waiting on a call from Mitch to confirm scene findings and it’ll all be closed.’

‘Oh, okay,’ she said, trying not to let the disappointment show.

People outside the profession might think the response cold to the death of one young person and the near-death of another but Kim understood it. Every detective she knew had signed up to stop bad people getting away with bad acts. Stacey was not unfeeling towards the person who had died. She was only disappointed at not being able to track and find the person responsible. And normally Kim would agree with her. Only this time she wanted to get as far away from this scene as she could so the vision and the memory could fade from her mind.

The sooner the better.

‘So, Penn, where are you at?’

‘Three witnesses left to interview, boss, but not enthusiastically confident about the outcome.’

She nodded. Two thirteen-year-old kids passing the entrance to Hollytree had been beaten up by three older kids, and despite decent descriptions no one on the estate was talking.

‘Keep at it,’ she said, feeling a ‘we did everything we could do’ chat coming on with the parents. It happened rarely but sometimes there was just nowhere left to go.

But when she did have that conversation she wanted to be sure that they actually had done everything they could.

‘Stace?’ Kim asked.

‘Final interview with Lisa Stiles today and should be ready to present tonight.’

‘Good work,’ Kim said.

Lisa Stiles was a woman in her early thirties with two young boys. She’d been the victim of spousal abuse for a decade and had said nothing. She’d accepted the behaviour from her husband thinking she’d been protecting her children from the truth. Until a month earlier when her youngest child had punched her in the mouth ‘Like Daddy did’.

The realisation that she could be raising two small boys to believe this was normal behaviour had terrified the life out of her.

It was Stacey who had taken the initial report and continued to guide her through the process gently, efficiently and with sensitivity.

She had built a strong, solid case that would be presented to the CPS.

‘Penn, you know what’s coming,’ Kim said, nodding towards his desk.

He pulled a face. ‘Really?’

Kim nodded.

‘So, when you said Betty was my “welcome to the team present”…’

‘Yeah, it was loose, so hand it over. Stacey gets the plant.’

Stacey offered him a triumphant look as she stroked the green leaves.

‘Work harder, Penn and you’ll get her—’

She stopped speaking as her phone ran. . .